New Tools, Old Tricks: Emerging Technologies and Russia's Global Tool Kit

• Published in: Policy File 2021
• Main Author: Weiss, Andrew S
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - US

How will the Kremlin's tool kit evolve as emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deepfake forgeries become more widespread? Russia has long struggled to overcome the constraints imposed by the country's chronic inability to retain talent in support of homegrown innovation and R&D. That reality may consign it to a follower role in the technological realm. Russia's global activism continues to lean heavily on tried-and-true tactics and capabilities that are popping up more frequently in a variety of far-flung venues. The blatant and often sloppy nature of such efforts suggests the Russian leadership believes that even adverse publicity helps strengthen Moscow's claim to the status of a global power. Part of what makes the Kremlin's current calling cards easier to spotmore difficult to counter or detera remarkable indifference to their knock-on effects. Present-day Russian cyber and influence campaigns are capable of doing a lot of damageif they can also sometimes be quite clumsy or fail to advance Russian strategic objectives. At the same time, Russia's operators are likely to remain highly technically capable and to make their mark by being operationally aggressive rather than by pioneering major technological advances.